Orestes trusting, Pylades lost
by MsTonksLupin
Summary: "Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable." Jean-Jacques Rousseau Enjolras decides to give a chance to Grantaire and sends him to talk to the marble workers at the Barriere du Maine. Grantaire disappoints himself and his leader... again. But after Icarus walks away, it' ll be too late for Apollo to realize that he was burnt his wings. Platonic slash


Night had fallen at St. Michel and the streets seemed deceivingly deserted. Though it was true that appearances can be deceiving even when one least expected it, and that was a frank explanation of the reason why any passer-by would spot a faint light coming from the window of the first floor of a seemingly empty Café, in such a late hour of a cool winter night. Appearances such as that specific one, were pretty much deceiving, for the very Café Musain could hardly be considered as empty. In fact, the harsh contrast of the two personalities inside the Café, led to a to lead to a high possibility of a collision which would be more than enough to fill a much larger in size, place than the Café.

A tall, blond Adonis in a quite fashionable red vest, which made a clear contrast with the surroundings, was seated in an empty table, lost in a pile of dusty books and scrawled pieces of paper in front of him. Enjolras' expression was that of a smart child who found enjoyment in thinking of a difficult arithmetic's problem for school, while its friends would prefer to play outside. He looked obviously troubled and concentrated, though at the same time he wouldn't rather be anywhere else.

A Bacchus not half as handsome, but with an equally fashionable emerald green vest which, unlike Enjolras' one, hadn't been changed or washed for a few weeks, was seated at another table, his boots rudely rested upon a nearby chair and his curly head lazily rested on his fist. In his other hand, was an empty bottle which had once contained wine, so empty, that for Grantaire it produced a disgracefully obnoxious sight.

The man raised his head and fixed his eyes at the concentrated leader, deciding to allow himself to get a little more drunk than he already was, with the sight of his idol's features under the effect of the candlelight. "I would offer to buy you a drink if I didn't know you are too much occupied with changing the world."

Enjolras raised his tired eyes from his book but they didn't meet the drunkard's ones. "Are you laughing at me?"

"No, _mon ami, _not at all, after all we happen to share this specific ambition."

"Is that so? I thought your only ambition was to fill your veins with enough alcohol to make you lose any contact with your surroundings."

Grantaire grinned, examining the content of his glass. "Exactly, that's the reason I drink at first place! So that the world that surrounds me can change entirely in my eyes, thus my soul won't ache for being painfully despised and woefully ignored by the leader of our revolution. You see now, Enjolras, we _do _share the ambition to change our world!"

Enjolras tidied a pile of papers in front of him. "Be honest, Capital-R is there anything in this world which can affect you or make you feel ashamed? Can your soul actually _hurt_? I was under the impression that you lack a soul."

Grantaire, always with the same bitter smile on his face, got up, a quite thoughtless decision, concerning that he seemed to experience difficulty to keep his balance. "Hardly, _m'sieur. _However incomparably clever you might be, as much as your speeches may inspire even the coldest of minds, you do possess the ability, or rather the talent, of making mistakes. Thinking this world may be changed with your sacrifice is one. Thinking that I don't have feelings is another."

"_Freedom is the power to choose our own chains, _said Rousseau, therefore I have the right to choose my chains, Grantaire, and I choose to be sacrificed for this land, for my principles, for _République, _even if a winesack as you finds it all very amusing." Enjolras finally raised his head, and faced the drunk man with an inexplicable expression, that one could even call painful.

Grantaire's calm smile grew bigger, as he rested on a wall. "A winesack indeed. But as your beloved Jean-Jacques also had said, I may not be better, but at least I'm different!"

"Nonsensical, that's what you simply are. And you terribly frustrate me."

"_Peut-être." _Grantaire shrugged his shoulders. "If you'll excuse me now, Apollo, it could only be wrong of me to be bothering you all this time. I hope you'll generously forgive me, but if you don't, you will at some part, for I do not promise to relieve you from my presence, not unless you ask me to." The man turned away and walked to the door.

The blond man was resting his forehead in his palms. He was staring at the table without really managing to look, with a frown on his face that made him look like a stubborn gamin trying to find a way to be fed for the day. He turned his head and looked at the man departing, then quickly stared at the table again. "What keeps you coming here, R? You don't believe in all this. You don't believe in revolution."

Grantaire stopped, a new smile appearing on his face when he heard the man he admired addressing him. He slowly turned around, tottering in an unexpectedly classy manner. "Why, Apollo, I can't think of a place I would rather be!"

Enjolras was unconsciously crinkling a piece of paper in his fist. "I don't understand." Said he.

"There is wine here, there is Joly to amuse me with his hypochondria, Courfeyrac who is kind enough to remind me when to change a vest after being hung over, there is Combeferre to make me feel ashamed, Prouvaire to remind me how my life could be and Bossuet to remind me how my life is not. There are Bahorel and Feuilly whom I can understand even when my brain is not functioning properly, and then there is you, _mon ami_!"

"Really?" Enjolras surely wished that his voice would come out to sound more disapproving than it actually did. "And what did I do to you, as all our other _amis_ surely have some effect on your existence?"

Grantaire half closed his eyes, trying to focus his drunken mind to the face of the young leader, to his troubled figure lighted by the faint candlelight. He sighed, as if he was about to explain something patently obvious to a curious child. "That's easy to answer, my dear Apollo! You exist to make me drink even more!"

Enjolras' fingers were tangled in his own golden locks. "Damn you, Grantaire, I've had enough of that, why don't you go and mock a girl willing to run after your silk yet wine stained cravat instead?"

Grantaire made a sound of ignorance. "Because there isn't such a girl around, that's the most satisfying answer I can provide you with for the time being." He waved his hand. "Goodnight dearest, we will meet again tomorrow, for now I feel obliged to leave you alone in Patria's welcoming bosom!"

And with that, the drunk man walked away.

_[…]'What else is there?'_

'_A very important thing.'_

'_What is that?' asked Courfeyrac._

'_The Barriere du Maine,' replied Enjolras._

_Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection, then he resumed:—_

'_At the Barriere du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, and journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family, but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter with them for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They are becoming ex tinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There is urgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, but with firmness. They meet at Richefeu's. They are to be found there between twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow. For that errand I had count ed on that abstracted Marius, who is a good fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us. I need some one for the Barriere du Maine. I have no one.'_

'_What about me?' said Grantaire. 'Here am I.'_

'_You?'_

'_I.'_

'_You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown cold in the name of principle!'_

'_Why not?'_

'_Are you good for anything?'_

'_I have a vague ambition in that direction,' said Grantaire._

'_You do not believe in everything.'_

'_I believe in you.'_

'_Grantaire will you do me a service?'_

'_Anything. I'll black your boots.'_

'_Well, don't meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from your absinthe.'_

'_You are an ingrate, Enjolras.'_

'_You the man to go to the Barriere du Maine! You ca pable of it!'_

'_I am capable of descending the Rue de Gres, of crossing the Place Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Mon sieur-le-Prince, of taking the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rue d'Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me the Con seil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vielles Tuileries, of striding across the boulevard, of following the Chaussee du Maine, of passing the barrier, and entering Richefeu's. I am capable of that. My shoes are capable of that.'__'Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu's?'_

'_Not much. We only address each other as thou.'_

'_What will you say to them?'_

'_I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles.'_

'_You?'_

'_I. But I don't receive justice. When I set about it, I am ter rible. I have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution of the year Two by heart. 'The lib erty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.' Do you take me for a brute? I have an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the sover eignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hebertist. I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand.'_

'_Be serious,' said Enjolras._

'_I am wild,' replied Grantaire._

_Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man who has taken a resolution._

'_Grantaire,' he said gravely, 'I consent to try you. You shall go to the Barriere du Maine.'_

_Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Cafe Musain. He went out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat._

'_Red,' said he as he entered, and he looked intently at En jolras. Then, with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points of the waistcoat across his breast._

_And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear:—_

'_Be easy.'_

_He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed._

_A quarter of an hour later, the back room of the Cafe Mu sain was deserted. All the friends of th were gone, each in his own direction, each to his own task. Enjolras, who had reserved the Cougourde of Aix for himself, was the last to leave._

_Those members of the Cougourde of Aix who were in Paris then met on the plain of Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries which are so numerous in that side of Paris._

_As Enjolras walked towards this place, he passed the whole situation in review in his own mind. The gravity of events was self-evident. When facts, the premonitory symptoms of latent social malady, move heavily, the slight est complication stops and entangles them. A phenomenon whence arises ruin and new births. Enjolras descried a lumi nous uplifting beneath the gloomy skirts of the future. Who knows? Perhaps the moment was at hand. The people were again taking possession of right, and what a fine spectacle! The revolution was again majestically taking possession of France and saying to the world: 'The sequel to-morrow!' Enjolras was content. The furnace was being heated. He had at that moment a powder train of friends scattered all over Paris. He composed, in his own mind, with Combe ferre's philosophical and penetrating eloquence, Feuilly's cosmopolitan enthusiasm, Courfeyrac's dash, Bahorel's smile, Jean Prouvaire's melancholy, Joly's science, Bossu et's sarcasms, a sort of electric spark which took fire nearly everywhere at once. All hands to work. Surely, the result__would answer to the effort. This was well. This made him think of Grantaire._

'_Hold,' said he to himself, 'the Barriere du Maine will not take me far out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu's? Let us have a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on.'_

_One o'clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolras reached the Richefeu smoking-room._

_He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, let ting the door fall to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with tables, men, and smoke._

_A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by another voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary._

_Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a mar ble Saint-Anne table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He was hammering the table with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard:—_

'_Double-six.'_

'_Fours.'_

'_The pig! I have no more.'_

'_You are dead. A two.'_

'_Six.'_

'_Three.'_

'_One.'_

'_It's my move.'_

'_Four points.'_

'_Not much.'_

'_It's your turn._

'_I have made an enormous mistake.'_

'_You are doing well.'_

'_Fifteen.'_

'_Seven more.'_

'_That makes me twenty-two.' [Thoughtfully, 'Twenty-two!']_

'_You weren't expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at the beginning, the whole play would have been changed.'_

'_A two again.'_

'_One.'_

'_One! Well, five.'_

'_I haven't any.'_

'_It was your play, I believe?'_

'_Yes.'_

'_Blank.'_

'_What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! [Long revery.] Two.'_

'_One.'_

'_Neither five nor one. That's bad for you.'_

'_Domino.'_

'_Plague take it!'_ _Les Miserables, Victor Hugo,_ _Volume VI, Saint-Denis, Book I, A Few Pages of History_ _Chapter VI, Enjolras and his Lieutenants_

Enjolras could sense his blood pounding in his veins, the blood which had now colored slightly his usually pale, marble cheekbones, producing a sight of him that was even more stunning than what his friends and certain hopeless girls had ever witnessed in the past. His delicate yet strong fingers were clutching on Grantaire's shirt and he could feel the drunkard's heart hammering with guilt and terror against it, as he pressed him to a wall.

"You have been trying for a long time to achieve such a thing, and I must congratulate you on the case in which you have finally succeeded", he hissed, sending a warm breeze of air on the other man's face. "You've made me feel like an utter fool, Grantaire." He pronounced the name not differently than a vulgar swear. "I've been a fool for trusting you."

Grantaire's breathing was rugged, yet he was calmer than any other man in his state would be, eternally the same, refusing to ever show any passionate sentiment, whether that should be called fear or enthusiasm, for anything apart from alcohol. However, if anybody could be inside that confused, drunken mind, he would only meet disgust, complete, endless disgust which Grantaire felt for himself, horror for the realization that he had failed again, and for that fact that the other man had him pressed on a greasy wall, sending shivers down his spine. "You have only done your duty as a leader: you have given a lost cause a second chance. That doesn't make you a fool. Nothing could ever make you a fool." He breathed.

"Damn you!" shouted Enjolras, in a rage his _amis _had rarely witnessed. "Do you have the cheek to keep laughing at me, at _all of us_? Do you think this is a game of dominoes? Do you think all this is a fairytale, a… a vivid dream of absinthe, do you think that messing around with our cause, wasting our time, do you think that makes you more _amusing, _more of a _bon viveur, _do you think that such actions will make you look more charming in seamstresses' eyes?"

Grantaire waited until Enjolras was quieted in order to seek for some oxygen, his fingers still clutching on his shirt. Then he spoke gently, quietly, an expression of sincere regret on his usually cynic face. "I have even disappointed myself, but little do I care about the guilt my abhorrent being bears at the moment. What I cannot get over is the fact that I have disappointed you –_failed you- _again. I'm sorry."

Enjolras clenched his fist, looking ready to hit him, but after taking a few deep breaths, he eventually released him. "For once in our life we agree. You have disappointed me. Again."

"I'm sorry", was all that Grantaire could repeat, never letting the shame to force him to take his brave, expressionless eyes from Enjolras' bright ones.

"I must ask you to leave. You can't continue on our cause without caring for it. Why did you take such a responsibility today, Grantaire? Why are you still here? Do you know that we may sacrifice our lives, fighting for our principles?"

"I am very well aware of the fact, monsieur, I'm positively sure that the people of Paris, despite their interest in your beliefs, will let you down in the end. I'm waiting for my end patiently, like a loyal Penelope waiting for her Odysseus."

"The people of Paris will come to our side, whether that ruins your plans or not, Grantaire!" spat Enjolras. "And still, I refuse to let you die without caring, disgracing our venture for freedom with your blood."

"However filthy one may be, Apollo, he always has the right to choose how to die." Grantaire's words were unusually sharp and cool.

Enjolras looked back, and made a few steps away, then turned around and sighed. "I never called you filthy. You could achieve such great things, you could be so useful indeed, so helpful, if you only believed in anything but wine… I don't know how you live, I don't know what keeps you in life, other than a seemingly beating heart, a heart that beats for nothing but indifference."

Grantaire raised his eyes which had rested on the ground for a while and smiled slightly. "Love, I daresay. Are you aware of the definition of this word, my leader?"

Enjolras chuckled bitterly. "Me? Are you asking me whether I know what love means? That you should ask yourself! Do you consider love what you feel, not even for naïve females, but more particularly for a glimpse of their stockings?"

"Invocation at the moral of the enemy." Grantaire had suddenly found his sarcastic grin again. "_Mon cher ami_, you have only bothered to accuse me of such trivial displays of love, but you have forgotten that the question was firstly addressed to you. Do you know what love is?"

"I love democracy." Enjolras' now fervent voice reminded Grantaire of his usual cordial speeches. "I love liberty, I love freedom, I love my Patria." One stray sunray of the twilight lighted his gold hair, the golden buttons of his Robespierre vest, the veins in his arms were visible as he clenched his fist tightly; he was more inhuman than ever. He had Sun for a father and Earth, the Earth of France, for a mistress, a terribly enviable one.

Grantaire didn't realize a serene smile appearing on his face. "Of course you do." Said he, in a tender voice. "But Patria is insincere, Enjolras, she is ungrateful and she will keep deceiving you. She will never appreciate your efforts, your struggle, the devotion of your heart, no matter how much of your blood you spill upon her skirts. Patria has no eyes for you…"

"_Arrête__!__"_

"…And yet you'll keep attempting one suicide after the other for her eyes because you have no mind, principles have taken over it as much as wine has taken over mine, and Patria is glorious…"

"Ever the witty one, Grantaire!" shouted Enjolras. "Thou have a talent with words, and then people praise my ability for speeches! Although I shan't be persuaded, as you clearly have not the faintest idea of what you're talking about, and that is because you haven't experienced all these feelings, you don't know how this is, because you have no Patria! You are more than welcome to come and find us if you ever find one. Until then, you deserve no respect of ours."

Grantaire was staring at a coin he was softly kicking with the tip of his scruffy boot. He remained silent for an instant, and then raised his head, and offered his leader a tender grin for once again. "For the second time in such a short period of time, you have terribly disappointed me for being woefully mistaken. I know very well what I am talking about. I do have a Patria." His hand reached for Enjolras' one, causing him to flinch in surprise. "And my Patria is you."

Then, he gently led Enjolras' hand to his lips, and pressed them on his fingers. Before Enjolras could manage to remember how to breathe, Grantaire let his hand fall down, put his own in his pockets and walked away, leaving the younger man alone, standing there, at the Barriere du Maine.

Back at his untidy, small apartment, Grantaire fell on his knees and looked under his bed in order to find a dusty bottle of absinthe he had been keeping for unexpected circumstances. He rested his back upon the door and stroked the foggy glass. The first drops that filled his body and spirit, made him smile.

He was going to die for Enjolras anyway, on some sort of miserable barricade; therefore it wouldn't make any difference if he allowed his Apollo to keep killing him softly on every occasion, on each passing day…

"_Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable."__  
__Jean-Jacques Rousseau_


End file.
